1 ) Setting Sail: Negotiating the Treaty

This podcast was produced on the lands of the Darawal, UN and Wadiwadi peoples of the Five Islands Dreaming. On the lands and waters that we live, study and work, we acknowledge and pay our respects to the traditional custodians and cultural knowledge holders of these lands and seers. Hello and welcome to negotiating the ocean, an ocean equity podcast by the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security Encles at the University of Wollongong. I'm Jennifer Macy, a PhD candidate and I'm Ina Tesla-Fomizoki, a postdoctoral research fellow here at Encles. Welcome to our new video podcast series, co-produced with the University of Eberdeen and Three Bio. And this special series, we're talking about marine genetic resources and the BB&J agreement. So just a reminder, the BB&J agreement is that big international ocean treaty that just came into force this year. That's correct. So it looks at the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. So areas beyond national jurisdiction are those areas outside of each country's national borders. That's correct and it looks at the water column as well as the seafloor. And we're going to demystify some of the big technical issues in the treaty such as the clearing house mechanism or the standardized batchhead and defy intellectual property rights. And we're also going to look into the interrelations between this new agreement and other instruments that are already negotiating and looking into how to share the benefits from marine genetic resources and digital sequence information. So how the different treaties talk to each other. But let's begin with our first episode, setting sail, negotiating the treaty. We'll take you behind the scenes of the BB&J negotiations and the negotiations around marine genetic resources. We welcome our panelists today. John Young, advisor with Pacific Missions on Ocean Issues. Luciana Kuerlio, international consultant in law of the sea and ocean governance and a visiting fellow of the Ocean Voices program at the University of Edinburgh. Tamara Thomas, ocean advisor to the Republic of Seychelles and core coordinator of the African Group of Negotiations on the BB&J. Daniel Cullries, the cross-cutting coordinator for the High Seas Alliance. And Conrad Machiniac, judge of the international tribunal for the law of the sea and previous negotiator at BB&J on the Polish delegation. Now we'll take you on a journey back in time to before the BB&J agreement was negotiated. So this new ocean treaty before the Preparatory Committee meetings before the negotiations and before it was finally adopted. So to start Luciana, maybe paint us a picture and remind us what was going on in the ocean around the collection of marine genetic resources at a time before the treaty negotiations. So what were your concerns around ocean equity? My name is Luciana Finans-Kuerlio, I am a Brazilian international lawyer and a doctorate in maritime affairs by the word maritime universe. I have been following the BB&J negotiations with academic interests and my engineering resources and capacity building and transfer of marine technology. For the past six years, in addition I was in local the last two rounds of the negotiation serving as legal advisor first for the dose delegation and then for the Brazilian delegation. The governance of activities involving marine genetic sources was fragmented. It was confined largely to areas under national jurisdiction through instruments like the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Nagoya Protocol, and the FAO, the National Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Arrival. So beyond this fragmentation in governance, the global capacity to collect, to research and to use MGRs and digital sequence information remains in highly unique forms. Reports such as the UNESCO Global Ocean Science Report and recent academic studies show that only a small number of countries possess the infrastructure technology and expertise to collect and use marine genetic resources. The study from 2024 by Paul Dershin and Eric Zieg Coppius highlights a similar imbalance regarding patterns where research from developing countries readily firstly ensue intellectual property. In essence, affirmations have long benefited from these global commons, leaving the majority of the world behind without any access to it or without benefiting. The VBNJ Treaty brings new hope by addressing critical governance gaps, although yet major challenges persist, particularly regarding monetary benefit sharing. So yes, that's a little bit how the situation was and I would say still is regarding the use of marine genetic resources. So very important that we now have this new treaty, but let's go to our next question and this question is going to be for Joan. So Joan, you were involved since the very beginning of the negotiations. Can you share with us how did the idea of this new illegally binding agreement on VBNJ come up and maybe also who was driving it and how was it made possible to start these negotiations in the first place? Thank you for having me today. My name is Joan Yang. VBNJ was the first file I picked up when I moved from Polau to New York and I have been following the process and at every meeting since 2006 up until now and I've participated mostly as a negotiator in the proceedings. So how did it start and who was driving it? So when I arrived in 2006, I was super excited because I thought I was actually there for the very, very first discussion of this ever because it was a brand new process. However, in the context of something that was then called unicplos or the United Nations informal consultative process on Oceans and Law of the Sea, there had actually been two meetings, one about MGRs or marine genetic resources and another one I think about marine protected areas or MPAs and they had talked a little bit about all of these issues there and I think there was a growing feeling that there was a lacuna or a gap in international law with regard to biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. And from my perspective, it was really Dere Talotti who was then the South African legal advisor and Maria Teresa Pesola from Brazil who were early active actors on the developing countryside towards wanting us to have this discussion and then you also had the EU who was very active as well and it's part of how I knew Conrad for so very long because he was also at those early meetings starting in 2006 and all of these countries so you had both developed and developed inside seeing the need for this work to proceed so we could try and fill this gap in international law. And there were also some IGOs and NGOs who were early advocates so I can definitely say that from IUCN, Kristina Geardy was very active, Lisa Spear from NRDC, they were also encouraging us to think about these issues and I have been involved so far back that it was not a done deal that it would be illegally binding a agreement or a treaty. In fact, at some points early in those ad hoc open-ended informal working groups, there was discussion for example of could we have a UN resolution on environmental impact assessments? But there were a few key moments that kind of brought us to what ended up being the final BBNJ agreement and that was in 2011 while Argentina was the chair of T77, South Africa proposed BBNJ as a topic in the ministerial outcome and it got endorsed and by getting endorsed it brought over 100 countries into the fold of those who then were going to want to push for us to have work on this agreement. And then there was also a pivotal workshop that was held in 2011 in the margins of the formal discussion at the Rockefeller Foundation. And at that meeting, there was a meeting of the minds from both developed and developing countries that we should have four elements for what we should discuss. So marine genetic resources, including access and benefit sharing, area-based management tools, including marine protected areas, capacity building and transfer of marine technology and environmental impact assessments. And those four we then called the package from there on and at that informal discussion, it was also seen that illegally binding agreement would be the best kind of way to move this work forward. And quite fascinating to see how individuals can drive these developments. Amazing. Do we want to add anything on the first topic of how this agreement emerged, why it was needed? So for me helping to support Polau, there was a feeling that what was happening in areas beyond jurisdiction was in a lot of ways just falling to the tragedy of the comments. For some things you had, you had like, for example, you had the Regional Fisheries Management Organizations, which in for Polau the important one is the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, WCPSC, but they can only deal with fisheries, right? So they couldn't look at other things that were happening in the sectors or to try and look at things in a holistic way. So for protected areas, it was just not going to be possible. And I think it also ties into what Luciano was talking about, that there was a gap about marine genetic resources and there was a feeling especially from developing countries that things that were being taken from an area that is the common heritage of mankind were going to just enrich a very limited or few. And that probably was not in keeping with these aspirations around common heritage of mankind. And you can see now like how precious that was because there are activities that are taking place that are wholly unregulated and there are questions about so who decides, who benefits, is this really the way we want things to happen. But one of the other things I think was really important is you can see even all the way back is 2006. I would say those first few meetings, it wasn't super clear, but like by 2010, I felt like you could see developed and developing countries and because you had the meeting of the minds over that, it allowed us to move forward. I feel a little bit cold upon so I can join if that's okay. So my name is Conor Martina. Currently, I serve at the bench of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. And immediately when I say this, I feel obliged to mention that whatever I say is my personal capacities rather than me reflecting on my past role rather than anything else. So I was actually in a number of roles during the negotiating process, but as Joan rightly pointed out, I was involved since around 2006 or 2007 as well. One in 2007 was specifically on marine genetic resources and also this is certainly when I started and also wrote my PhD later on that. But generally my involvement was first I was the head of the Polish delegation. Then I was participants to the European Union negotiating team, focusing on marine genetic resources. And when we reached actually the phase of negotiations, I was the vice president of the conference. So I had a number of hats to juggle. I just wanted to highlight indeed that this 211 package that the four main components of the negotiating package. That was indeed a meeting of two blocks in a sense. So g77 plus China, which is obviously much more countries than 77 countries on the one hand side and also many subgroupings within g77 as well. And on the other hand, let's say developed countries, including the EU. And they all wanted the treaty. Although it's probably also fair to say that they wanted the treaty for different reasons. If you look at the 211 package and going back to this ICP of 2004, new sustainable uses of the oceans, they speak to different types of uses. So you clearly have marine genetic resources, including the official title was questions on benefit sharing and the questions were deleted and the actual benefit sharing started. So this is certainly sustainable use. But then particularly the EU was rather vocal that there are all these activities and potentially challenges and threats to whatever happening in areas beyond national jurisdiction. And you don't necessarily have elaborate set of rules. Let me put it this way. And hence area-based management tools, including NPAs, as well as environmental impact assessments, so EIAs. This is why all this machinery could go forward. But obviously this is also the reason why this machinery needed some time for the ship to reach the shore because there were various interests at stake. And it meant that all these various perspectives needed to meet in one particular wording for one particular provision that took time. Perfect. Do you want to elaborate on this, Joe? I also was thinking that it was important because it wasn't just the EU alone on the developed side, but countries like Australia, New Zealand were very active. And Mexico as well. And they're going to become important when I talk later about what or maybe some lessons learned because Mexico and New Zealand, I think had a really important group that they pulled together. So as we know, the topic of marine genetic resources was really one of the biggest sticking points. Conrad, looking back, what were the main challenges in negotiating new rules on NGIS? I'm not sure I'll be able to specify all the challenges, possibly because there were so many. And the marine genetic resources or NGRs were the most difficult part. But looking back, I'm sometimes considering that I'm not sure we do justice to our fellow negotiators in doing ABMTs or EIAs and capacity buildings and institutional and including dispute settlement clauses. I guess everything was relatively challenging at some points. Perhaps for different reasons though, but everything was pretty hard. And ultimately the sort of guiding principle was nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. But yes, marine genetic resources or consensus on set of provisions on marine genetic resources was considered pivotal as a sort of key to unlock the compromise to each and every other section. Many believe that if the MGRs are solved, then it's impossible for any other part or bit of negotiations to not be solved. But still everything was difficult. I think it's worthwhile to recall what John mentioned as well that at the beginning, discussions that I remember sitting in those are the legal rules applicable to marine genetic resources or usage of marine genetic accessing and using marine genetic resources. If some stated there was or the legal gap some stated no, there wasn't a gap. There is a set of rules applicable. But even then there was two other sets of challenges, namely what rules are applicable. And here we come to perhaps most famous clash of rules, which is freedom of navigation or freedom of the high seas rather should I say on the one hand side, mostly favored by developed countries. And on the other hand side, it's the common heritage of mankind in the convention, but currently and in line with the B&J agreement common heritage of humankind, which provide a appropriate relevant set of rules applicable. And even for those that stated that one of these rules or set of rules is applicable, then there were some questions in how are they applicable. Are these rules sufficient or we need additional, let's say implementation rules. We have these discussions subsequently, do we need a treaty or not? That was a very valid questions for the early stages of negotiations. This was not just a dispute of a set of abstract legal principles. These principles carry let's say philosophical ethical and legal implications with them. So that was much more than a very abstract theoretical discussion. It was very real. So for example, there were debates about access to marine genetic resources free in line with the freedom of the high seas thinking, is it a new freedom or perhaps part of the freedom of marine scientific research or navigation, some people refer to that context to bioprospecting as well. That's perhaps of secondary nature at this stage, but still is it free or perhaps is it or should it be somehow regulated, then further should they use be somehow regulated and particularly if you access and use it and generate some sort of scientific or commercial or otherwise benefit broadly speaking, I deliberately wouldn't like to highlight just commercial, but this is what most people talk about, but there are various benefits of using including scientific benefits of accessing and doing science basically. Should we apply the rules as we know them or should there be some new rules? Should you share your scientific results? Should you share the samples? Should you grant access to these samples? Should you grant access to whatever is the outcome of your research and obviously should you grant access then to commercialize product? Should you share the benefits of the commercialized product? Certainly the sharing of benefits part was also very important. Should there be any mandatory system of benefit sharing or not or should it be just a voluntary system? And if any what type of benefits particularly monetary or non-amountary should be shared, then the quote that I often have in mind is also that resources are not, they become resources through the usage. So whatever the concept of what is resource changes of a time and this essentially dependent on how we use or learn to use new things and something that was not a resource could become a resource. I think when we started these negotiations, particularly on marine genetic resources, the focus was on in situ marine genetic resources. So the resources that are there in the ocean or in the deep sea doesn't matter, but material resources out there. And so these tended to be referred to as in situ resources. Then in Editi came exit resources. So if you take it out and let's say put it in a repository sample, how do you deal with that sample or access to that sample or research on that sample? Right. But then relatively late I would say in the process a re-evexation kind of this is actually not how you do science anymore. Much of the science is done through mining the databases without going out in the sea and you basically search for a digital sequence information about marine genetic resources or essentially any other resources that because you're probably as a scientist very often a focus or interested in a particular solution or enzyme or an expression of genes it provides. That's it. Later in the process a realization come that in order to future proof the agreement what you need to include is digital sequence information. And I'm using that name, but even the name itself was and perhaps even continues to be a little bit controversial. But still let's say digital sequence information or DSI is something that we learned to use in the later phases of the process. And it was far from agreeable at the beginning that DSI should be included in the future agreement and if yes then how. And then perhaps lastly relationship challenges. So legal and I would say political session negotiating tactics relationships. Let's start from the latter so sort of political negotiating type of relationship. So that process did not take place in isolation. Relatively in parallel to that process the CBD Conventional Biological Diversity including its Nagoya Protocol on genetic not marine but on genetic resources and access and beneficiary genetic resources was already in place in force and functioning and discussions there were taking place precisely on we now call digital sequence information. And obviously there was a little bit quipro quo because that was not agreeable in neither of the fora neither grouping of states was very willing to agree on something in let's say CBD, Nagoya protocol format. Because that would obviously have implications for BB&J negotiation and vice versa. But also that's a little bit also a legal relationship. What's the relationship between CBD and Nagoya protocol and BB&J the first primarily applying within national jurisdiction, the second obviously outside national jurisdiction. But also there were other relationship problems. The ongoing negotiations in the Geneva and the White Port Treaty that was actually agreed year after BB&J on the traditional knowledge and folklore rights. That was something happening in parallel. And Luciana already mentioned that intellectual property rights or patent rights were very present in the negotiations particularly when we were talking about marine genetic resources. And there were another types of relationship. Joel mentioned the fisheries regime. We already have one implementing agreement concerning fish stocks of 1995. So how do you deal with marine genetic resources or essentially anything that has DNA fish obviously have DNA. So how do you regulate on marine genetic resources without undermining the regime already in place pertaining to management of or at least types of fisheries. What's the relationship with traditional knowledge and indigenous peoples that's also was relatively strong part of negotiations in each part element of the 211 package. But I think only in MGRs part that that question receives its own provision. It's this interrelationship between law science policy environment and also these are dynamic systems. So the level of knowledge regarding law science change, the technology change as we negotiate it. And then obviously in ideal scenario if you want to legislate well you should be able to understand what you legislate on. And that may prove difficult for lawyers/diplomats negotiating this treaty while trying to understand the reality behind what we are negotiating about. It's a challenge but also a positive challenge that introduced a lot of interest intellectual stimulus to what we're debating. Thanks for these insights and also we're going to have another episode on the interrelation with other agreements. We're going to jump to Daniel now. Daniel, there were also other disagreements throughout the negotiations on the difficulty or the discussions on how to trace MGRs and how to connect that to the benefit sharing scheme. I may be starting off with an introduction. I'm currently the crosscutting coordinator for ISIS Alliance. I followed the BB&J negotiations with various hats. First a little bit distant as a sixth committee advisor to a delegation as Sides Marine Species Officer and then with more focus as part of the IUCN and ISIS Alliance delegation. And at the moment I'm coordinating ISIS Alliance family engagement on Prankcom. And I also have a different hat. I lead the writing of the MGR chapter of IUCN's upcoming BB&J implementation guide. So especially grateful to also learn from others here to be able to provide a bit more context there. So jumping into your question, I think the challenge of the difficulties around agreeing on monitoring traceability, transparency on MGRs has to be seen tightly interlinked with the conversation around benefit sharing. Because in the end it's exactly that operationalization of the principles of freedom of marine scientific research on the one hand and then enabling benefit sharing on the other hand that sort of played out in that context. There were some divisions between mainly developed and developing countries on the MGR provisions during various points in the negotiation. And one of the arguments around why monetary benefit sharing should potentially not be included apart from the principles discussion was a practical one in that on the one hand, there wasn't necessarily a lot of research or published evidence for high values of commercialization of MGRs from AB&J. And on the other hand, then connected with that was the argument that a track and trace system similar to let's say Nagoya protocol would be very costly and that would eat up the benefits of the relatively low level of commercial value. And I think as Conor already referred to at some point during IGC 5 there was this feeling that if MGRs can be solved, everything else can be solved. And I think one of the really critical breakthroughs there was signalling by developed states that some form of monetary benefit sharing could be acceptable. And that compromise was based on the idea that started to emerge throughout 2022 and then during IGC 5.1 of the possibility of decoupled monetary benefit sharing. So monetary benefit sharing that doesn't rely on tracing the actual value of commercialization of MGRs by resource or by item, but rather having a payment system that scales on something else. One of the secondary challenges after IGC 5.1 was not able to agree on text that emerged was that compromise at the end of IGC 5.1 wasn't in an official document. So I think after IGC 5.1 finished there was a bit of uncertainty around what would be the basis for discussions going forward. It was clear that there was some convergence around the possibility of monetary benefit sharing, but still more details to be worked out. I think quite a few things happened between IGC 5.1 and 5.2. One of them being the parallel CBD process where the CBD decided to launch its process to establish multilateral benefit sharing for digital sequence information, which brought the DSI conversation back with more focus in BB&J as well. At the same time, GCM 7 at the beginning of the resume session of the fifth intergovernmental conference dropped an extensive new proposal on several elements in part two. I think summarizing the extremes there was on the one hand a voluntary transparency system without monetary benefit sharing and the other hand a relatively comprehensive monitoring system. In the end, I think it's all part of the same compromise that in the end, we ended up with an initial decoupled payment modality for the beginning of the 3D where monetary benefit sharing is scaled based on the assessed contributions of developed states, but not giving up the option of potentially different future benefit sharing modalities that the COP can decide on based on recommendations by the Access and Benefit sharing committee and moving some of options were discussed during the negotiations into a list of examples that is included in the text. So that's solving the monetary benefit sharing part of the equation and then on the monitoring side that meant that no very heavy track and trace system was necessary. However, what negotiators landed on was this light touch system that is now in the 3D that helps monitor implementation, helps ensure transparency of activities with regards to MGRs and that both provides information that the Access and Benefit Sharing Committee and the COP can use in their decision making on future modalities, but also potentially can serve as an information source for future benefit sharing modalities if the COP decides so, if it decides on modalities that need that type of information. I think it's really important to recognize the innovative nature of the BB&J Batch Act identifier, not going to the individual sample, but finding that level of it's not explicitly cruise, it could also be at the granularity of a project and having that persistent human machine readable identifier to be able to follow MGRs and DSI through the pipeline in a sense and it almost reflects back to some of those initial questions, some of those initial discussions around not being able to discern the actual commercial value or how much value is generated through commercialization of MGRs and DSI from AB&J because a recent EU study was trying to go through all of the data and one of the things it said is that without the batch identifier they can make approximations, but it's not possible to directly tie a lot of the commercialization to BB&J, but the batch identifier in the future will enable making that kind of link. So now we're going to go into actually negotiating the final hours of the agreement, so we know that the ocean treaty took almost 20 years to be agreed and luckily we have all of you on the panel who were part of the negotiations and we're going to hand it to Tamara who was actually in the room for these famous 36-hour-long marathon of negotiations, maybe you can let us know what was it like that night? It's a pleasure to be here today with my fellow colleagues, I'll get to see you breakfaces again, so as an introduction to myself I'm Tamara Thomas and I have been engaged in BB&J negotiations for well over 12 years, I served as advisor to the chair of the PEPCOM Eden Charles before we even had an intergovernmental conference. I currently serve as ocean advisor to the Republic of St. Shells and who coordinated the African group of negotiations on BB&J, specifically and thematically during the IGCs, I co-led area-based management tools, including marine protective areas, as well as environmental impact assessments, with some special attention to finance within cross-coeurishing issues. I currently serve also as direct devotion ties, but today, like Juan Rad, I'm speaking in my personal capacity. So taking us back to those long 36 hours, I think what we were all, a lot of us that were in that room, we remember, is first I can say that there was a lot of adrenaline, so even though in some regards it was excruciating to be in that room, there was so much adrenaline among everyone, everyone cared so much globally, to ensure that we came out with an agreement that was good for the ocean and also equitable. So within the room, we could see the realities of inequity in terms of the distribution of resources around the globe, when you think of some delegations have more than five people on a delegation and a lot of developing countries would have maybe one person on the delegation or two, but mostly one person on the delegation. And for those who had more than one, a lot of people had already caught flights back home, etc, and not expecting that the negotiations were going to go on that lead. However, I would say that we know Lee, the president of the negotiations, was very tactful in the way that she did this, bringing all of us together. So during the negotiations, as many of you on this call remember, a lot of items where we couldn't find agreement on, were placed in a parking lot. And so that night, we all addressed those issues in the parking lot. So as I was saying, just now, one of the inequities was not only that there were less resources within developing countries than our peers, but also that affected us in a very real and tangible way in terms of your sitting at a table around table in a very cramped room with no access to food really because we're negotiating through the midnight hours. No one from your delegation could go around and get food because they may be negotiating on a topic that you're not an expert on. And so you had to be in that room for the entire time. I'm not leaving. Whereas sometimes you could see our counterparts taking shifts, going to take nap sim come back and being very well rested and very alert. Whereas we had to ask some of our, when we're talking about the negotiating blocks, we had to ask some of our high stakes negotiators to, hey, just go in a room and lay down for five minutes, we have some on call you just so you can rest a bit so that your brain will be alert to negotiate. So the good thing was that we were all in one room negotiating several items on all of the thematic areas that joined listed at the beginning. And so the good thing about that was that you can see the influenza impact one decision or one negotiating item or agreement will have on another. So as conwrites that this was a package agreement and so nothing was agreed until everything was agreed. In terms of everyone having the oversight of all of the items, it was extremely beneficial to all negotiators. The benefit of having a small delegation and of developing countries even though broken into their negotiating block. So the pieces, which is the Caribbean and then we had Latin America and the African group, etc. So together for MG77, along with other countries, the good thing about that was that you didn't know only about one topic. You usually knew what was going on at each of the other thematic areas. If someone was talking about finance and you were negotiating ABMTs, you pretty much knew how finance and the agreement there was going to affect EIAs and ABMTs. And so even though we were limited in the number of people that we had in terms of negotiators, it was a really strong point for us to be able to negotiate across the board and understand how these cross-contained issues impact different thematic areas. So I would say it was 10 set times. I think we were all forced in a, and I say forced with a very positive connotation. We were forced to work together and not come out of that room until we had an agreement. And I think it was extremely successful. It was grueling, but in the end it was really beneficial for the actual agreement that we had. So it took so long to negotiate, but then what actually made it cross this last finish line? What made it so successful in the end? I think it's a combination of factors actually, in a sense, the opposite of nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, but that also means that in order to have all of this agreed, you needed to have a little or major breakthroughs here and there. So I wouldn't attribute the success to one particular thing, although Daniel had, hopefully mentioned one, certainly very important issue concerning monetary beneficiary, Estamara described. These were also people in the room, and that also contributed. We were forced, let's say, to work together, but we, some of us knew each other for almost 20 years already by the time. And also there was a steep preamble to the agreement mentions, we state shell actors as stewards for the options. There was a sense of responsibility, I would say, only for your particular interest of your particular delegation, obviously every negotiation needs to remember about that, but there was this bigger picture, and I think all probably head in mind as well. With MGRS, that was this disagreement over the principles. One aspect of solving that is, as you will look in Article 7, I think it is of the agreement when there are general principles and approaches, and you have both of these principles listed as applying to the agreement. But it's a very overarching general provision, and it certainly doesn't say how they apply and where. In each of the sort of operative parts, including in the MGRS part, these principles are not directly referenced, which to necessarily mean that they're not reflected. I would argue that probably both of them are reflected in different elements of the whole scheme of MGRS, but that was probably one way of solving some issue, naming both principles and then trying to find solutions for very practical issues throughout. Another issue, as Daniel already explained, was indeed that this initially decoupled system, where financing is not dependent on your actual usage of MGRs, but it's essentially on developed states paying additional 50% of their assessed contribution to the budget, which is yet to be established by the way. We don't know how much that 50% is going to be. And then it may change if COP decides, so I think it's a three-fourth majority, if I remember correctly. And this system could be maintained, but it could be also changed in some other system, which could potentially be tied to somehow to commercialize products. One of the vital tools, which also Daniel mentioned, is DPP and J standardized batch identifier. This is the missing link between the resource and its usage. It sounds pretty technical, but it's quite crucial for the operation of the whole system. Certainly the solution on digital sequencing information was one of those very important breakthroughs. Less than a year, I think, before we finalized after the relevant CBD COP decision on digital sequence information was adopted, that everything moved very fast from there, but that was certainly one of the issues that moved it forward and indeed the traditional dichotomy between the North and the South are developing both with respect to monetary and non-monetary benefit sharing and with respect to including or not including and including how including digital sequence information. These were solved late in the process. One of the challenges was that, for example, my budget and most of the budget expired over midnight, so we were also afraid to move out of the building because we were afraid we will not get back because we didn't have as opposed to local stuff working in the UN. We were a bit worried that if we leave UN premises, we will not be allowed back because basically our budget expired. So that was one of the technicalities. That was solved by the way, I feel I shouldn't say how, but it was solved as well. And John, maybe, do you think that some of the successes of this BB&J negotiation and the final hours and the compromise finding and just the collaboration? Maybe some of that can be taken to other negotiation spaces, what can we learn from BB&J? Yeah, I definitely think there are. I want to touch on a few things from the 36 hours. I definitely agree with Tamara about the adrenaline, but she skipped the adrenaline of us all potentially getting kicked out because there was another meeting scheduled and we were all supposed to have to leave by 2 a.m. by 3 a.m. and I kept getting moved, but there was that reality that if we had to end the meeting and come back, I think we would have lost a lot of progress because there were concessions being made from both sides to try to get us across the finish line. For example, the 50% additional funding, which Conrad just talked about, but as well, there was something which I think it was Daniel who raised that developing countries also moved on the from track and trace to a much lighter system. And that was based on Brazil had very healthfully come and talked about what could be a regime that maybe could work that would be a little bit lighter since there was this feeling that the developed countries had their red lines. So between the time pressure and the reality of rena stewardship and I'll admit a little bit in the chaos and the pressure, you start to realize where you can show flexibility and what is your actual real red line because there are definitely some things where, for example, for the precautionary principle slash approach, we had a lot of difficulty agreeing that throughout the negotiation, but in the final hours, rena remembered that there had been a proposal which had not enjoyed success earlier on, but perhaps could be a compromise and that's in fact what was agreed in the final moments. So maybe one thing that is really good or is successful is having incredibly smart, incredibly good presiding officer and so we were very lucky and ambassadorly because she was amazing, but I do think that something that Conrad mentioned about like we've known each other for so long really is true because that long timeline helped not all of us, but many of us are not subject matter experts in these things that we are negotiating and so that opportunity to learn together explore the issues for certain health. The other things that I think were really helpful were things like chat and house rule workshops, national ones, regional ones and most importantly cross-regional ones. So we could build that trust and so in those final hours, we did think of various people as friends and comrades who we have walked this very long trial together, and then you also had these coalitions that were fascinating, right? Because you have your political groupings which tomorrow mentioned. She's 77 in China. She says, "Garrettom, the clan," which is the the core Latin American countries, that's what clan stands for, "but you also had a coalition on process which sounds crazy, but was super important so that we could try to all push the process in the same direction because you did also still have these spoilers." And of course you had coalitions for subject matter issues as well, but these varied yet not too many because sometimes if you have duplicative coalitions, it's not helpful, but these many different coalitions were helpful because for example, at one point, in the negotiations, we started to have a budget issue and I will admit that neither Palau nor Naaru has a fifth committee budget expert and having someone come and brief us on how the budget committee actually works so we can try and ensure that we can overcome that hurdle was incredibly useful. I've never used that information again since, but at that moment you needed it so that we could keep everything going. And as tomorrow talked about being able to see things across the wider package really helped. So in those final moments, you're trying to be like, "I maybe can't secure this, but I did secure this other thing and putting hooks in so we don't have to get everything right this moment, but maybe we do have to secure enough so that down the line at the cop, we will be able to fill this information in and fill in this agreement more." Realistically, there is a lot of work left to the cop, which isn't a bad thing. And I think that was helpful too to not see this as like the final moment, but as a really key milestone, but a milestone on a road that we're still going to have to walk. What is different now when we have the baby and Jay agreement? I'm just going to hand it to tomorrow. What would you say is the biggest contribution of baby and Jay or also who benefits from the baby and Jay agreement now? I will be remiss if I don't go back to the topic we were just talking about, so just bear with me for two seconds. Jo and just mentioned it, but there were coalitions that were formed among these various groupings as well. I think that was really instrumental in helping us all to understand what she should really care about in coming to agreements. I would say that the African group on carry come in terms of MGRs came together on a proposal that became the ground work for what is in the agreement now. So in terms of the biggest contribution of the baby and Jay, when it comes to MGR governance, etc, a lot of decisions do need to be made at COP1, and right now in Propcoms, we are leading up to that. So I would say that companies have always benefited, the companies who have been exploring and exploiting the ocean for the benefits sometimes of humankind. They have always benefited and I think they will continue to benefit. I would say that now with the agreement and an opportunity to be done, decisions to be made in COP1, developing countries do definitely stand a better chance in terms of access and also having a say in what happens with marringian ethical resources. But it definitely offers a renewed hope for the oceans and our planet and humanity. And it involves also developing countries and making sure now that developing countries have not only access to financial benefits, which of course, there's a lot of debate about how much financial benefits exist in actuality, but also having access to the data. I know right now museums, etc, do share that data with other scientists. And as we are going along, these negotiations are going into COP1, we just hope that developing countries will be able to have more of a decision-making power in the sharing of this information as we remove along. Luciana, what do you say is now different when it comes to marine research, as you know what is? As Daniel already mentioned, during the negotiations, states sought to avoid creating additional reuse and scientific research, which is just certain extent already constrained in areas beyond national jurisdiction. So while some states advocated for a comprehensive press ability system to enable monetary benefit sharing, all the alternatives happened to, I think, the fifth negotiation meeting. All the alternatives discussed would impose heavy obligations to scientists. So the compromise was a voluntary notification system through the clearinghouse mechanisms. These systems are science-abegative, higher and allows to parents through three key notifications. So one before collection, another one after collection, and a third one upon utilization. So states agree that these approach aligns with existing international practices, and there's not imposed undue burdens on science. What has been changed are these three notifications, obligations that were created, but to a certain extent, they were accepted as part of the current practice. So what scientists already are doing, they are just now part of a legally binding instrument. This is a little bit what has changed in terms of obligation, and it provides some experience or while guarantee some benefits that can be shaped. But something else also changed, and I think Conrad has spoken about how principles abstract principles were discussed, and the legal and concrete implications of the principles were discussed, and were enshrined with this dog. So we have the most important ones for marine scientific research are the principles of freedom of the high seas and the common heritage of human体. Regarding the freedom of the high seas or the freedom of marine scientific research, I would advocate that there is a huge change to the interpretation of this principle, how this is going to play out, it remains to be seen, I would advocate that it has been changed, and it is still there, but how this principle will be interpreted as change. And this is a huge theoretical but also concrete change to the way marine scientific research will be undertaken. We're going to close with Daniel now on what is actually the change in practice. I think Luciana already covered a really important element, and that is when we look at the provisions of the agreement, there was a lot of emphasis on this in accordance with scientific practice. And one of the things that changes over it just being scientific practice is, as Luciana said, it is now in a legal obligation. The obligation is of course on states, they have to ensure that the jurisdiction complied with certain of those provisions. I think what's important in that context to consider on the practical level is that scientific practice isn't uniform among member states. There are some things where states already differ in the way that they're implementing it. And also there are a number of elements in the text and that Jones said it was a milestone to agree on the text, but a lot of work was also left for the COP and for subsidiaries to decide and there are some matters that might require further interpretation in order to ensure that there isn't diverging practice. Of course, some diverging practice might be unavoidable and some diverging practice might also be completely fine, but also there might be diverging practice might also lead to an uneven playing field. So I think there are some issues that in order to give legal certainty to users might require further interpretation and practice. And maybe just to mention a few of those very briefly, I think that there's an interesting conversation already in some academic work around the granularity of notifications. So is it per cruise? Is it per project? Is it per segment in a cruise? It touches a little bit on the issue that the BVNJ batch identifier on purpose isn't called a cruise identifier. It's called a batch identifier. So what is the granularity of batch? There could be different or there is already existing practice between some states on how to determine which state has jurisdiction for a marine scientific research activity and who is responsible for ensuring that notification is sent. Is it the nationality of the lead researcher or is it the flag state and some of the exceptions both the Article 10-1 exceptional retroactive application and the exception of fish activities. They also have potentially some necessity for further interpretation and guidance. And so I think as Tamara said, there are quite a few things that we need to do now at prep form in order to ensure put into place how the subsidiaries will work, how to ensure representation, how to ensure that they are set up in a way to do their job. But then we already have quite a few tasks that we immediately want to give them around providing further guidance on how to put some of these things into practice. I believe Conran said that earlier needing to also engage with a user community and keeping up to date with current scientific practice and emerging technology to make sure that the 3D states future proof as was the goal throughout the negotiations. Thank you so much. Thanks everyone. If you want to have a last word, feel free, Joan. I'm going to hand it over to you. When we started the work, we had such a different vision of it. And we actually changed the name of the agreement. To instead of being about biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction, it was biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction because of this realization that so much was held in collections. It was actually on land. It was no longer in areas beyond national jurisdiction. But I think that the question was about whether we think that this is going to be important or make a big change. And I think that BB&J does have that possibility to be a watershed moment on all of the package elements. And I think that's what we're hoping for. Thanks. Thanks, Joan. Thanks. We'll give everyone one last thought about how significant is this agreement? Also, what is your hope for the BB&J agreement? I think there's a real chance for BB&J to be a tide that lifts all boats. And for example, comparing it to some of the other legal frameworks that deal with the SI, one of the big differences is that BB&J is binding. So I think in the way that not under mine article 5.2 and on the other hand, the obligation on states to promote the objectors of the BB&J agreement and decision making in other bodies in article A2, the way that is put in practice, if that is done in a way that we build strengths on strengths rather than allowing forum shopping between different IFBs, instruments, frameworks and bodies, I think there's a real chance for BB&J to lift the ambition across all package elements, but also among IFBs in AB&J. Tamara, what are your thoughts on the significance of BB&J and also your hopes? I think it just highlights that when developing countries come together and really agree on what's really important for developing countries and work together that has a unit. We can achieve so much more and then also working together with all of our counterparts, the other countries and ensuring that we continue to have the same vision as global citizens and we have the oil remain committed. We saw how much that looking happen with that and one thing I would add is just to ensure, especially for developing countries, that new delegates are really gotten up to speed in terms of what's going to be negotiated and why it's so important as we move on. So I think the vision that we had during IGC, we need to retain that and maintain it throughout COP1, which is really important and then all the other parts. I would like to highlight the importance of the agreement for establishing both a monetary and a monetary mechanism in adopting the budget and higher allowance of transparency and also it incorporates integrates modern concepts and principles, also remaining flexible for future development. Up until now what we had in the last PC system was a very constrained convention, a very constrained system that was very much dependent on interpretation, particularly decent interpretation. Now what we do have with Part 2 of the B&J agreement is a more modern way of legislating on environmental issues of the sea, that incorporate new elements, modern elements but also provide openings for future development. I think this is a great significance of this particular pre- My hope is that the monetary and non-mondetary benefits will diminish the gap between developing and developing countries and I hope to see more legal advisors from developing countries in future negotiation process. Thanks Luciana and Konrad, what were you saying? I think obvious for any lawyer and a number of speakers today underlined this value of implementation and how this implementation will look like, how many decisions will be taken by the COP, what will be the content of the decisions. But I will highlight one more issue which is a traditional challenge. So this challenges that we have on a global level, let's say, many states I guess will have domestically trying to implement and potentially putting novel things with respect to NGR's DSI or UNAMIT or monetary system which at least currently it's not certain what the monetary burden could be or benefit could be. So these are some of the challenges I think states may be faced with. Thank you. Thank you very much everyone for your insights and for taking the time and all the best with BB&J and your work and we'll see each other soon. And for those of you who want to read up on this, go to the book decoding marine genetic resource governance under the BB&J agreement edited by Fran Humphries. Many of our panelists today have contributed chapters to this book. We'll put a link in our show notes where you can also find more research and information on the BB&J Treaty. And next time on negotiating the ocean, we'll be looking at how BB&J exists in the world of marine genetic resource governance and the interrelationships between this treaty and the other instruments frameworks and bodies. This podcast was edited by Bettina Ottobick and communication is by Suniva Yitman. I'm Jennifer Macy, thanks for joining us and I'm Inna Tessin-Fambizoki. See you next time.